Menu

Categories

Recently, a client asked me how to put an icon that had gone missing back on her dock. Over the years I’ve been asked that same question by a number of Mac users. Even though Mac OS X is over 14 years old, there still seems to be confusion about the dock and how to manage its icons. So I decided to make a short screencast to show how.

I installed Apple’s mobile operating system on my almost three-year-old iPhone 4 yesterday afternoon. I had initially thought I wouldn’t bother, thinking the aging A4 wouldn’t quite be up to the task of keeping the user experience as snappy as iOS 6. I have been pleasantly surprised so far.

After reading reports of some laggy-ness and overall slower responsiveness I figured I could wait until November when I will upgrade to the iPhone 5S. But after a couple of clients called with upgrade questions and seeing iOS 7 in action on a friend’s iPhone 4, I decided I would give it a go.

So far I have not really noticed that much of a performance hit. The animated transitions may be slower than they would be on newer hardware, but I don’t have anything to compare them with so they seem fine to me. They are smooth and the entire interface experience seems to flow easily. There is no jerky-ness that I have noticed so it seems Apple has done a good job of accounting for older hardware in their coding.

The only jankyness that I’ve noticed has been within certain apps. For example, the Facebook app is doggy-slow and crashes often. This was the case before iOS 7, so I doubt the problem is with Apple’s upgrade.

All-in-all, a good experience so far. It’s sort of like having a new phone. I look forward to actually getting the latest hardware and seeing this OS upgrade really shine.

If you are looking at buying Google because of the Android OS, don’t waste your time. Google is a great company, and the plethora of Android devices only serves to extend their lead when it comes to services like Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, and Google Maps. However, the company can’t police the use of Android in the way that Apple can control the iOS system. If you are looking at buying Amazon, do it because of their huge competitive advantage of low prices, fast shipping, Amazon Prime, and more. However, if you are looking for a great device company, look at Apple. The company has tight control over its hardware and software offerings, and the difference in quality apps on iOS versus Android is stark.